


Dear Dr. Watson

by on_the_run_from_the_MI5



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Letters, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3071462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_run_from_the_MI5/pseuds/on_the_run_from_the_MI5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sherlock's return, John receives a mysterious letter by a certain Sebastian Moran</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Dr. Watson

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fan fiction I wrote... I have NO idea why I'm doing this.  
> For Mimi

Dear Dr. Watson,

I guess you might be confused at the receipt of this letter. You probably do not remember me. My name is Sebastian Moran, though you might only have heard – if you have at all – the name Colonel Moran. We spent about three weeks together in a military camp in Afghanistan – though ‘together is maybe a bit too much. We were there at the same time, you might say.

I can well remember you. You saved my life when I had been nearly slashed to ribbons by a mine. It is funny how I, bleeding half to death and drugged with morphine, can still remember your face and your voice and what you said to me, while you probably have no idea who I am. Then again, it was a busy day for you, all those wounded soldiers, blood everywhere... I remember how it coated the floor of the military hospital, shiny and red and... I am revelling in memories, I am sorry. I can recall you saying, “Stay with me, Colonel. Don’t you let go now.” And I didn’t let go, all thanks to you. You saved my life that day, Dr. Watson, and I should be grateful. But I am afraid I have to tell you that I hate you with everything I am.

You and I, we are very similar. Ex-soldiers, so very loyal and obedient, and so irresistibly drawn to blood and danger and all mad things in this world. And didn’t that get us into quite similar situations, you and me? Both of us found ourselves being the right-hand men of the two most brilliant human beings on the planet – if you can call them human at all. You and I, we put all our effort into helping and supporting two madmen in their task. It is only that you were on one side, and I was on the other. (I certainly hope you understand what I am implying.) But we are not only right-hand men, are we? I know for sure that you are not just a helpmate to the great Mr. Holmes. You are his friend, Dr. Watson, his best friend, a man whose life Sherlock Holmes would save even by giving his own. Isn’t that wonderful, Dr. Watson? To know that you have been saved by him?

My ‘boss’, as you might call him, has not done what he did to save me. No, never that. He did it to finish what he started, to reach the end of his obsession, he did it to burn. I was never a part of his scheme, or at least I guess I was not. Who will ever know what happens in such a brilliant and mad mind? You have a friend who loves you dearly and who you love back the same way. I had... I am not sure what I had. Me and him, we never were friends. I guess we were more than friends, in a way. But how do you define that? Is ‘loving’ more than having friendly feelings? Is it just different? Because I have heard of loads of people who love their friends more than they could ever love their partner, and still the love you have for someone with whom you are in a... ‘romantic relationship’ differs quite strongly from the love to a friend. But I seem to be losing the point. ‘Unfocused’, he would have said. He hated that about me. No, he was not my friend. For me, he was something different. And, dear God, I did love him. Sometimes, I flatter myself with the thought that he might have loved me back in his way, but then again, I suppose that is rather ridiculous.

(Isn’t that quite a revelation, Dr. Watson? The tiger in love with the spider? How unsettling that must be.)

Yes, we have a lot in common, but that wouldn’t be a reason to hate you as I do. It is what distinguishes the two of us. Not the obvious difference, that ridiculous side-of-the-angels-side-of-the-devils-thing. What an insufficient reason would that be? To hate someone just because they are on the other side? He would laugh at me for that. It would be pathetic. No, it is the other obvious difference that makes me want to rip your throat out, tear you apart limb by limb and leave you bleeding.

It is that you got yours back. You got him back, your hero, your friend, the man that matters most to you in all this world. Your madman did in fact not smash his head on the pavement, he did not splatter his blood and brain all over the place. He disappeared from your life, and you grieved, and I must say I almost pity you a bit for that, but his heart never stopped beating. Mine, I will never get back. He is gone forever, Dr. Watson. He did shoot himself in the head, and he did splatter his blood and his brain all over the place. Nothing, nothing will ever bring him back. My boss, my madman, my man – his heart stopped beating.

Don’t you think it is unfair, Dr. Watson? Don’t you think it is madly, madly unfair that you get your friend back, and the man I love is gone forever? Gone somewhere I cannot follow him? You have always been a kind soul. Can you not call it unfair that a man, no matter how bad and immoral and spoiled he might be, is robbed of the only person he loved in this world, no matter how psychotic and sick and dangerous that person was? The side of the angels get their reunification. The side of the devils, me and him, we do not. Some people would say it is karma, it is fortune, it is what we deserved... Would you say that as well, Dr. Watson? You, as a kind and humane man, as a philanthropic? Do we deserve the worst punishment in this world and the one beyond?

This is why I hate you, Dr. Watson. It is nothing personal, really. It is not your fault, and don’t worry I might be coming after you. It is just that you have something I crave, something I would die for. You have been granted the greatest gift while I have to endure the harshest punishment. Your friend can go on living with you while the man I love has fallen into the unknown. So I am sorry, but I do not think that it is fair. You may call him a psychopath, and he was. You may call him a criminal, of course he was, and a brilliant one. But allow me to forbid you to ever call him a monster – because he was not. Do you know what distinguishes men from monsters? Men have a soul, they can be loved, they can be claimed. And Lord knows that he was my man, and I loved him, for heaven’s sake, I loved him. And...well, I guess he could even have been human, from time to time. In those moments when he met my eye and I realized that it could be more than just flattering myself, the thought that he loved me back... He was not a monster, Dr. Watson. In fact, not even a spider. Jim Moriarty was a man, he was my man, and I will never be able to accept that I will never get him back.

So excuse me if I hate you, Dr. Watson. I can’t help it.

Yours sincerely,

Sebastian Moran


End file.
